CBGB's, New York City

What can you say...this place is legendary...EVERYONE played here....including Blondie, The Police, The Talking Heads, etc...

Place is dive-like and the wall are plastered with newpapers, and concert posters....

great music here all the time!!!!

Dress Code: No dress code....actually, don't dress up....you'll look and feel like an ass.....

Short for Country, BlueGrass, and Blues; CBGBS was a dive bar that was created for a different kind of music than what it later was to become. Started by a large, friendly biker, a friend tried to convince him to book their band, the Neon Boy Outsiders, on weekends. Reluctant to allow them to play, he was finally convinced after bass player Richard Hell convinced him his band, later renamed Television, had all those influences in them. The bar went under, and was host to drug dealers, cross dressers, and every kind of street life imaginable. The only nights that had alot of visitors was the nights Television played. He began allowing other heavy, experimental rock bands to play. Up and comers in bands by the name of The Ramones, Blondie, The Dead Boys, and Television began to play there regularly and to large crowds. A fashion designer took the image and sounds back to England with him and put together a little band called the Sex Pistols. There are still plenty of bands that fit the proto-punk genre playing at CBGB's. When I went, about eight bands played, including a funk band called the Velvet Mafia. It was led by a seven foot tall crossdresser. Their Bowery locale keeps the tourists to a minimum, despite it's being a fairly safe place to go to for it's location. It now also supports an art gallery and experimental film venue next door called OMFUG.

Dress Code: Black Leather, ripped T-shirt, drag, clownsuit, whatever

The mecca of punk !
Bands such as Blondie,the Ramones,Plasmatics and others started playing here in the 70's.Back then this place was a hole in the wall with a filthy,grafitti covered bathroom.In 2002 it is a hole in the wall with a filthy,grafitti covered bathroom.Cheap cover charge,lots of brain-blasting music and always a fun time ! And hard rock/punk band members sometimes show up and jam ocasionally after their NY concerts.Example-Metallica,Motorhead,Guns n Roses,etc.

Dress Code: Anything that can be washed or thrown out after having beer spilled on it.
Black leather,long biker hair, blue mohawks and shaved heads are very acceptable.
So are tough women.

Sorry guys... CBGB's is closed. In what is either an encouraging or very troubling sign of the times, there are reports that the entire club will be dismantled and reassembled in Vegas.

This is where the Ramones, Talking Heads and a score of other bands started out.

Dress Code: Various